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GameSpy's Best of E3 2012 Awards

The very best games we saw at this year's Electronics Entertainment Expo.

Our feet ache, our muscles are cramped, and we've heard so much dubstep over the past three days we're probably suffering from internal bleeding. Yet despite all of our aches and pains, we're smiling. That's because we've seen the latest and greatest that PC gaming has to offer, and now it's time to declare the very best of the best. It's time for GameSpy's Best of E3 2012 awards!

Wow, three awards! PlanetSide 2 made such an impression on us from the first moment we laid hands on it that we've declared it the Best Shooter, Best Free-to-Play Game, and Best PC-Exclusive Game of E3 2012. How did it become our most-decorated game? Simple: where most shooters go to great lengths to create the illusion that we're part of huge war raging around us, PlanetSide 2 actually creates the war. It's the sheer size of the conflict that amazes us -- the promise of literally thousands of players fighting for control over huge, 64-square-kilometer maps with a huge variety of sci-fi weapons, gear (jetpacks!), and vehicles. To put this size into perspective: some of the bases scattered across these maps are roughly the size of a standard Call of Duty multiplayer map.

Plus, this is one case where the free-to-play system is not only a bonus, but essential -- it all but ensures that the war in PlanetSide 2 will never be lacking for soldiers to fight it. It may not have the shiny graphics of Crysis 3, but we're hoping it'll open up a whole new world for first-person shooters.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Best Strategy Game

Developer: Firaxis GamesPublisher: 2K Games

The competition in this category was stiff, with both the shiny SimCity and the proven Company of Heroes 2 making strong cases... but the return of turn-based XCOM is an event almost 20 years in the making, and the new aliens and advanced technologies we saw here at E3 gave us even more reasons to look forward to repelling this October's invasion. It's not just nostalgia powering this pick, either -- Friaxis' XCOM revival has even generated a ton of buzz among gamers who've never fired a Blaster Bomb Launcher at a Muton (including our console-gamer friends). We're hugely excited about turn-based strategy and tactics coming back into the spotlight, and that a classic PC franchise finally is getting its due with a fantastic-looking update.

Defiance - Best MMORPG

Developer: Trion WorldsPublisher: Trion Worlds

We can't yet speak for the overall MMORPGSHOOTERTVSHOW package, but as far as the game half of Defiance goes, Trion Worlds has created an excellent third-person shooter foundation on which to build a new kind of online RPG experience. One minute we were blasting cyborg miners on a basic quest, the next we were cruising across the open world on our future ATV to meet an Ark Fall dynamic instance head on. Much like the rifts in Trion's other MMO, Rift, Ark Falls keep the world fresh and provide plenty of new stuff to shoot, including aliens the size of office buildings, Hellbug Hellions (lousy name, cool creatures). How much will it cost to play? Will the TV show be any good? Those are questions for another day. Today, we just know that what Defiance showed at E3 is a fun shooter married to an MMORPG.

Cartman's special attack involves pulling down his pants, farting, and setting an enemy on fire. Eating Cheesy Poofs restore your health. Enemies are called "douchey vampire kids." Yep, this is definitely a South Park RPG -- and it's unlike any RPG we've heard of. At E3 this year it became much clearer just how much potential it has to completely nail the look and feel that's made South Park a pop-culture staple since 1997, and how damn funny it is (assuming you're a South Park fan). Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Obsidian have done some great work to bring the world of South Park to life, and really makes it feel like you belong in this small mountain town. It's a no-brainer as our favorite RPG of E3.

"How did you get him to the boat?" That was one of the more popular topics of discussion at E3 this year, asked in reference to Bethesda's Dishonored demo. The single level gave the goal of infiltrating a well-guarded mansion and extracting a target (alive), but left the "how" open to interpretation. Every person we asked gave a different answer -- with a host of weapons and supernatural abilities at your disposal and the well-constructed openness of the demo level, the options available for completing Dishonored's objectives are seemingly endless. Playing as a character with so many powers that allow us to fight or sneak through the level, it's an amazing sandbox playground with potential for generating endless anecdotes of legendary cleverness, boldness, and stupidity, all in a fantastic art style.

How did we do it? We possessed a rat to sneak by the guards, used a sleeping dart to render the target unconscious, threw him over a shoulder, Blinked (teleported) to a nearby roof... and then hurled him from the sixth-story rooftop. Not a good idea when you want to bring the target home in one piece, but it gave us reason to play again.

The Walking Dead: Episode 2 - Starved for Help - Best Adventure Game

Developer: Telltale GamesPublisher: Telltale Games

The first episode of The Walking Dead adventure game blew us away with the shockingly horrifying story of survival in Robert Kirkman's zombie apocalypse. We thought the second episode might have trouble keeping up those gut-wrenching life-and-death decisions, but (without spoiling anything) after seeing just the first 20 minutes of Episode 2: Starved for Help, there's nothing to worry about in that department. Plus, the effects of our decisions from the first episode are already showing up in big ways -- we can't wait to see where this stomach-turning adventure will go next.

Natural Selection 2 - Best Indie Game

Developer: Unknown WorldsPublisher: Unknown Worlds

It's almost unfathomable that a small team could create an innovative shooter-strategy hybrid that looks like it can stand up proudly next to the similarly themed Aliens: Colonial Marines -- and even boast a flavor of complex, asymmetric team-based play that promises to keep players guessing and innovating in all the same ways we saw with Left 4 Dead's Special Infected classes -- and more. It's been a long time in coming, but through innovative design and a specially designed engine, this indie game is getting to the point where it'll be able to stand out in an overcrowded genre. As has been proven time and time again by bland big-budget shooters, that's something all the money in the world can't buy.

After an E3 so dominated by bloody violence, seeing Quantum Conundrum in action was a nice -- and very welcome -- breath of fresh air and cleverness. Don't let this cutesy exterior fool you: there's a hardcore puzzler underneath. The sense of self-satisfaction achieved when solving them gives that same endorphin rush that made Portal one of our all-time favorites -- and just wait until you see Safe Surfing for the first time. From what we've seen, Designer Kim Swift is so far successfully teaching us how to stop thinking with portals and start thinking more about the objects around us and how they behave when the rules are suddenly changed. The best part? It's just a few weeks away!

Click here for the winner of GameSpy's coveted 2012 Best of Show Award! Drumroll please...